Extras
by SunsetGirl94
Summary: One-shots from the Snares and Strawberries series (now on Book 2: Smoke and Music Notes). These are extra one-shots told from other POVs along the story. If you would like me to do a POV one-shot from any part in the story that has already passed or if you want a POV from the current point in the story please leave the request in the reviews or PM me. Hope you enjoy!


_**Hi guys! So this is a one-shot from Katniss' POV, before the events in chapter 16 of Smoke and Music Notes. It might be hard to follow along if you're not following Smoke and Music Notes. So allot of this is canon (sorry for the repetition) but i thought it'd be important to show how Madge affects the dynamic of Katniss and Gale. So hope you ENJOY :**_ D

Katniss POV

I'm pacing. I'm not a pacing type of person but here I am, pacing. The wind bangs against the side of the small cement house and I wrap my arms around myself, shivering. _The wind will die down soon_ , I tell myself. It's hardly morning now, the sun isn't even up yet. Although it'd be impossible to tell if it were anyways, the dark clouds would block out its rays. There's a heavy storm brewing, my mother made me make sure we had enough firewood to last us a week last night. Who knows how bad the storm will be.

My glances towards the door have become more frequent, waiting for Gale to appear out of thin air like he always does. The small fire I've created inside has hardly made a dent in the cold and I wonder for the hundredth time if he'll even show. He's been home for weeks now but he never came to my house, never showed up to our usual Sunday meeting spot in the woods. It's not as if he needs to hunt now anyways. And even if he did show up to our meeting spot and find the arrow I made out of small rocks pointing towards the cabin, he could decide not to follow it. It's a long and cold trek, it'd made sense for him not to come.

But he has to come. He has to. I would.

I throw more kindling on the fire, placing my hands in front of it for warmth before rubbing my palms against my pounding forehead. My headache hasn't gone away since the events of last Sunday. I had decided to visit this very place I am now, the cement house by the lake my father used to take me to. I don't know why I had such a desire to see it again, maybe because nothing has made sense lately and all I wanted was to revisit happy memories of my father. Or maybe it's because that morning I had woken up unable to remember his face.

Whatever the reason I was exhausted by the time I had gotten here, sweaty and hungry and lost in my own thoughts that I didn't see the signs. The stream of smoke from the chimney, recent footprints indented in the snow. It wasn't till I heard the click of a weapon behind me did my feet stop moving.

Instantly I turned, drawing my arrow although I knew I was as good as dead already. The white Peacekeeper uniform gleamed against the snowy backdrop and I saw the woman's dark brown eyes widen in shock. And fear.

She was hesitating. Hesitating to kill me. A voice screamed at me to take the shot now, when I had the chance but my fingers refused to move, to release the arrow that would kill this person.

I felt something press hard against my back and a shaky female voice demanded, "D-drop the weapon."

"Her first," I said back, my voice hard as stone.

And to my utter shock, slowly the Peacekeeper dropped her gun to the floor, raising her hands up. I pointed my arrow to the ground, though I still held the string tight and ready to shoot if needed. The woman behind me dropped whatever weapon was pressed against my back. "Come around so I can see you." I ordered.

The woman in front of me shook her head, "She can't-"

"Now!" I shouted, raising my arrow back to the woman's head. There was a step then a dragging sound and a sharp intake of breath. Another woman, a girl really, came into view. Her uniform was ill-fitting, hanging off of her body and the toe of her right boot didn't clear the snow, thus the dragging. In her hands she carried a broken branch she used as a crutch.

"Where's your weapon?" I asked her. In response she held up the branch. Clever. "You're not Peacekeepers." I say, eyeing them skeptically. "Who are you?"

Their names were Twill and Bonnie, Bonnie being the younger girl around my age. They told me they were runaways from District Eight. They were skeptical of me, telling me very little with plenty of glances shared in between them. Bonnie recognized me as Gale's cousin, which immediately made me trustworthy in her eyes, but Twill had seemed less than convinced.

When I had asked why they ran away from Eight they told me that there had been an uprising, that the people had rebelled only to be bombed by the Capitol. Bonnie and Twill had been the only ones to escape.

"Where are you going?" I asked them.

They looked at each other for a moment before Twill leaned forward and said, "District Thirteen."

District Thirteen. The district that had been destroyed ages ago. The district that is nothing but rubble. They didn't listen to me though, only said that they truly believed it existed.

I took pity on them, gave them all the food I had caught that day as well as tried to teach Twill how to use her gun for hunting before they went on their way.

And even though they were obviously desperate people grasping on to the hope of some utopia that doesn't exist, I was unable to stop thinking about what they told me. The uprising, the attacks from the Capitol, their people still fighting back throughout all of it. And I knew I had to talk to Gale.

I look up from staring into the fire and find him in the doorway, looking at me with a far off look in his eyes. And seeing him, safe and sound in new clothes made by the Capitol is nearly enough for me to change my mind. Just looking at him brings back the words he said to her, to Madge on that light up stage in front of all Panem, how he kneeled in front of her and took her hand in his.

Gale breaks the silence first. "Snow threatened to kill you. Personally threatened."

"Okay." I had thought as much anyway.

He nods, opening his hunting bag. "I brought you this." He pulls out a dark blue wool scarf. "It's Portia's."

"Who?" I ask, making no move to take the scarf.

"My stylist."

Right, the Capitol woman whose job is to make him look like something he's not. "You're taking handout from the Capitol now?"

His eyes darken and he throws the scarf onto my lap. "You know I'm not. It's not like that. You needed a scarf, she had plenty to spare. Don't make something out of nothing."

Anger bubbles up inside me but I try force myself to keep my mouth shut. Now is not the time to get in a fight with Gale. Still, I've never been good with keeping my mouth shut for long, "How's the bride to be?"

"There is no bride to be," he says, "That's just part of the act. And you know it. If I didn't put on the act we'd all be in danger-"

"-Aren't we already in danger? If Snow already wants me dead?"

He sighs, raking his hand through his hair. "I don't know. He said if we didn't succeed in convincing the Capitol, of convincing him, then there'd be consequences."

Twill and Bonnie's story rings back to me and I realize Gale has no idea what is really going on in the districts. Which means he'll be much more open to what I'm suggesting.

"Did you succeed then?" I ask, taking the scarf off my lap and wrapping it around my neck.

He shrugs his shoulders and I can see the look of defeat in his eyes. "I don't know. He didn't exactly us back a grade with tips and notes."

"So we may still be in danger," I say, filling in the blanks.

"There is no may about it. We've always been in danger."

He pauses than and the silence is back and I take a deep breath before telling him, "I have a plan."

He looks up at me, clearly surprised. "Let's hear it then."

"We run away."

The quiet before is nothing compared to this. He stares at me for a moment, unblinking before looking into the fire, his expression unreadable.

I'm preparing myself for him to start laughing at the idea, to dismiss it as foolishness when he say, "I can't. We can't run away."

The flat out rejection is much worse than the laughter would have been and I rise to my feet in anger and frustration. "A year ago you wanted to run away! A year ago you said we could do it-"

"A year ago everything was different," he cuts me off. "I could never leave them."

"You wouldn't leave them!" I tell him, appalled that he would think I wouldn't want him to bring his family along with us. "Bring them."

He shakes his head. "I can't, you know Madge would never go-"

"Madge?" I ask, my voice fully showing my disbelief at the mention of her name in my plan.

"And Haymitch," he says. "You know I couldn't leave them. The capitol would torture them to find out what they knew, even if it was nothing! I can't leave."

But we have to leave, before we end up dead. "Haymitch is the town oaf, no one would believe he knew anything," I snap at him. "And Madge is the Mayor's daughter, no one would ever touch a hair on her head."

Gale's expression hardens and his eyes glare and I doubt if I've ever seen him so furious before. "Did you miss her almost being murdered on your television screen! Snow threatened her and her family too. Being the Mayor's daughter hasn't saved her Katniss."

Guilt washes over me as I remember staring at the image of Clove sneering over Madge's body as blood gushed down her face. How many times had I defended Madge to Gale, and now in the face of danger I forget everything I once believed.

"Then bring her," I relent. "Bring the both of them. Force them to go. Lie to them if you have to."

His shoulders slump and he shakes his head once more. "You know I can't do that."

"And why not?!" I demand.

"Would you be able to?" He yells back at me. "I mean really, be able to take your family and leave everyone who is defenseless behind?"

For a moment Peeta's blue eyes flash before me, his kind smile, his gentle laugh, the way his hand fit perfectly with mine. Could I leave everyone behind? "Yes, for Prim I could." But it sounds false to my ears.

"No you couldn't Katniss. I know you and you couldn't."

He turns away from me and anger runs through my body. "You said it yourself we are in danger. You would risk everyone you love for her? "

My words stop him and he looks back at me. "You know I would do anything for my family. And yours. You have been a part of my family since I met you. I love you Katniss."

There it is. He loves me. And if this was a year ago I would have known exactly how he meant it. I would have been able to look into his eyes and read his mind, to know without asking what he was thinking.

But I'm unable to read him like I used to able to, and now I don't know what he's thinking. What he means by those little words. Does he love me like a friend, like a sister, like a lover? I have no idea.

But what I do know with absolute certainty is that I don't know what I want him to mean. For the second time Peeta Mellark's face pops into my head but I force the image away, making myself focus on the now.

I look up at him, into the eyes that I used to know as well as my own and I realize that the reason I can't tell what he means is because he doesn't know either. Not really, not truly. He doesn't know what category I fit in, lover or friend. Only that he cares about me, that he loves me.

"I know." I tell him. _I know you're confused. I know you don't know what you want. And neither do I._

He nods once, turning to leave once more. But I can't let him leave; I can't let him dismiss my plan so easily. I can't let him walk away when I know that we will die here if we don't do something. "You don't know what they are capable of Gale!"

When he turns back to me this time his scowl is back and I find I prefer it there because at least it is something I'm used to, something I understand. "I was the one in the Games, I know what they are _capable_ of."

"Then why won't you see reason? We have to leave before we end up like District Eight!" I shout at him.

The moment the words are out of my mouth I wish I could take them back. Because now he will never leave. He won't. This is what he has been waiting for his whole life. "What happened in Eight?" he says in a hushed voice, his eyebrows furrowed, his back straighter than it was before.

"N-nothing."

But Gale is no fool and he knows when I'm lying. My head drops as I say the words I know will be the end of him, of all of us. "I met these girls in the woods last week. They were from District Eight. They were dressed in Peacekeepers uniforms and I almost shot one of them."

"Almost?"

"I couldn't shoot it, I couldn't kill her." The admission makes Gale flinch but I continue onward. "But they told me they were from Eight that they escaped after the bombing."

"There was a bombing?"

"Yes. They escaped and have been traveling on foot to D13."

Gales eyes narrow, "Why? There is nothing but rubble there."

"That's what I told them. But they were persistent. They were hesitant to talk to me, I don't think they trusted me. They didn't tell me much, only that they believe there is unrest in other district too.

"Which ones?"

"I don't know." I look up at him questioningly, expecting the color to return to his cheeks for there to be excitement in his eyes. But I find his eyes calculating, his skin pale. "I thought this was what you always wanted."

"It was." He says, his voice low. "It is. But things are different now. Complicated. Everything is complicated." He looks at me. "I can't leave."

My hands begin to shake and I nod my head once. "I know. I knew you wouldn't be able to leave if you knew there was a chance at an uprising here. And that you can't leave them."

"Catnip-"

"Don't." I tell him harshly. I unwind the scarf from my neck, throwing it at his feet. "Here take the scarf, I don't want anything to do with the Capitol."

He doesn't try to stop me as I grab my bow and quiver, marching away from the cement house. I know running away seems cowardice, but what else can we do? An uprising here would kill us all.

My resolve hardens as I walk back to the fence. If Gale won't leave with me, than he'll be left behind here. My family and I could make it on our own in the woods just fine.

You don't have to do this alone. Peeta's words come floating back to me. That's what he told me when he first began to talk to me during the Games. It's not the first time I've missed him, there's been plenty times before now. He's wrong when he said that he was just a stand in for Gale. He and I had something Gale and I never have had. It wasn't just the kissing either, Peeta understood me in a way no one else had, he was kind in a way I never knew was possible. And he cared, even when he shouldn't have.

And suddenly I know that what I said to Gale was a lie. I couldn't leave Peeta. Not even if Gale had decided to go with me, I couldn't leave him. He's different, special. He's good.

How do you ask a guy you haven't spoken to for months to suddenly run away with you? I guess a good way to start would be an apology. Which I have always been awful at.

I shoot three squirrels on the way to the fence, figuring that bribery usually helps apologies along. And then, right when the fence is within view I see it, a fairly good sized turkey. It's still young by the look of it, and it's usual practice to let the young ones be until they get bigger. And I don't want to be lugging around a turkey while trying to talk to Peeta.

Still, the bird could go for quite a bit, and Head Peacekeeper Cray has a particular love of the animal. And we could use a few extra coins with the storm coming in. I pull an arrow unto the string, aiming at the birds head and watching with satisfaction as the arrowhead embeds itself in the bird's eye. "Hope you're hungry Cray."

 ** _Okay so how you all like it? I hope Katniss' POV brought a bit of insight into her head and where the story is headed. Anyways please REVIEW (even if you hated it) and I should have the next chapter to Smoke and Music Notes up soon!_**


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